


Gorilla

by moonstruckhargrove



Series: The Billy Hargrove Chronicles [7]
Category: Stranger Things - Fandom
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 16:24:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16857370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonstruckhargrove/pseuds/moonstruckhargrove
Summary: Based on the request: "Billy wants to surprise you and take you out but catches a guy at your house. So he ignores you for a few days and you get upset because it turns out it’s your cousin. Fight blah blah blah make up"





	Gorilla

Billy Hargrove was going soft, of that he was undoubtedly sure. He wouldn’t be browsing the aisles of Hawkins’s only florist shop if he wasn’t. Yet here he was, picking out a few stems of your favorite flowers: hydrangeas, peonies, and lilacs. He tried not to wrinkle his nose at the strong fragrance of them, carrying them to the counter for the girl to wrap them in clear wrap and tissue paper.

She gave him a knowing smile as she arranged them prettily, taking in his half-unbuttoned shirt, leather jacket, and earring dangling from his left ear. Definitely not part of the usual crowd of customers. But then he asked her to throw in some of that fancy looking ribbon and tie it in a pretty bow, which she did with an odd expertise for her age. Billy tossed her a twenty and told her to keep the change.

The drive to your house was spent with the music at a reasonable volume and the speed limit respected (a whopping 5mph over in a 30). Billy hummed along to Billy Idol, a musician he normally wouldn’t be fond of, but your love of the music had worn off on him. God, he was so going soft.

Sometimes he was still clueless as to how he managed to land a date with you. He pursued you for weeks once he learned your name, but you made him work for it. You weren’t like the other girls who fawned over him (spoiler alert: you actually were, but his ego didn’t need to know that). You finally gave in when he approached you with two tickets to a special showing of Texas Chainsaw Massacre; slasher films were your guilty pleasure.

It ended up being a very pleasant date. He didn’t try any funny business, just asked to hold your hand over the gearshift and mostly watched the ways your eyes stayed glued to the screen, entranced by the notion of deranged psycho killers wielding chainsaws. Occasionally, you’d bounce your hands between you and look at him excitedly at a particularly gory death. He couldn’t understand your fascination with death, but it ended up being one of his favorite things about you.

He smiled wistfully. He remembered trying to buy you ice cream on your second date, and you fought with him on it, like you did much of everything else. You insisted taking turns paying for each other, and since he bought the movie tickets last time, it was your turn to treat him. Your stubbornness won out, and you wore a triumphant smirk as the two of you sat outside the ice cream stand. He couldn’t get enough.

He had tried to keep his shitty home life from you, not wanting to taint the purity of you, but once again, your stubbornness forced him to come clean when you asked incessantly why he winced whenever you touched his back. The marks that littered his skin nearly made you cry. It was lost on you how anyone could abuse Billy; confident, cocky, sweet, and caring Billy. Of course, you were the only one who got to see his soft side, the one that wasn’t afraid to goof around and make faces, the one who did some really damn good impressions of famous comedians and actors (seriously, his Danny Zuko impression had you in stitches every time).

Billy was still beside himself with shock that he had let you in so easily. Then again, you had made it so. You never judged him for one of his outbursts, only arched an eyebrow in that way you had that said _you done?_ You were incredibly patient with him, something he still had trouble wrapping his head around, and you sat idly until his temper tantrums were over. It was as if you had been made personally for him; you balanced him out in ways he didn’t think anyone could.

He pulled up to your house, parking alongside the curb since there was another car in your driveway. His eyebrows came together as he walked up the drive, but he figured it was one of your sister’s friends. That thought was quickly washed away though when he looked up through the living room’s bay window and saw you standing side by side with a boy. Your smile was wide and you had an arm around his waist; his was slung casually over your shoulder, just like Billy would do in the hallways at school. The boy leaned down and kissed your forehead, squeezing you tightly into his side.

Rage ran its familiar course through Billy’s veins and his fist tightened around the bouquet of flowers in his hand. He couldn’t believe the nerve you had, making him fall for you as hard as he did, only to be getting your rocks off with some other pretty boy behind his back. He clenched his jaw so hard it ached, and with a suppressed growl he pitched the flowers angrily into your open trash barrel and stomped back to his car.

At the roar of his Camaro, you stepped away from your cousin and looked out the window. You could see only his taillights as they disappeared into the distance.

The next morning at school, Billy wasn’t waiting out at the curb in his Camaro for you, leaving you to drive yourself to school. He wasn’t at your locker either.

Instead, he was further down the line of lockers, chatting up Kathy Worthington, that thousand-watt smirk on his face. Kathy was toying with his necklace, twirling it around her finger.

The sight made you freeze and stare at him as if he were the devil himself. But Billy paid no attention to you and in a rush of anger you slammed your locker closed with more force than was necessary. It caused a few students to look over at you in mild alarm and confusion, but Billy continued to give all of his attention to Kathy.

Biting back tears, you ducked your head and rushed past them, wondering just why the hell you even bothered getting involved with the likes of Billy ‘Keg King’ Hargrove in the first place. Your friends had warned you that he was bad news. But no, you just _had_ to have the untouchable one, the one who didn’t let anyone in even if his life depended on it.

The past months meant nothing to him.

It was hard for you to concentrate in class. Fortunately, Billy seemed to have skipped the entire day.

But that luck ran out when you spotted him leaning against your car when school let out. Upon seeing him, you grew angry.

“Get the fuck off my car, Hargrove,” you growled.

His face was set hard. “No. Get in. I’m driving.”

“Like hell I’m going anywhere with you when you spent all morning ignoring me for Kathy Worthington’s tits!” you snarled.

“Get in Y/N.” And the finality in his tone left no room for argument.

The drive was painfully silent as you pressed yourself as close to the passenger door as possible. Billy drove until you were out in the woods, the middle of nowhere and the perfect place if he was going to murder you. You were ashamed that a small dredge of fear welled up.

“Do you have something you want to tell me?” he asked around a freshly lit cigarette. He opened the window and stuck his arm out. Despite being angry and hurt, he still blew the smoke away from you.

“I could ask you the same thing. What the fuck was this morning?”

“Can’t swallow your own medicine huh?” he asked, leveling you with a hardened glare. You glared right back.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, and so help me you’d better start explaining.”

“Your boy toy!” he suddenly hollered, no longer able to keep it bottled in. Confusion took over your angered expression.

“What? What are you talking about?” you asked, genuinely confused.

“I saw you in the fucking window last night, Y/N, hanging all over him. I was going to surprise you and I saw that fucker with his hands all over you!”

A look of realization settled on your face before your lips attempted to curl up in an amused smile. Billy, however, wasn’t laughing.

“What the fuck is so funny about you cheating on me?” He pitched his cigarette out and threw his hands up, his face going red.

Unbuckling your belt, you reached over and grasped his face in your hands and kissed him hard.

“You, you absolute gorilla. The boy you saw last night? Is my cousin Ethan who’s visiting from Europe where he goes to school. I haven’t seen him in four years.”

Billy’s face slowly dropped and the redness faded out of his cheeks. “What? Cousin?”

“Yes,” you implored, kissing him again. “He surprised me last night too.”

“But…I…fuck.”

“Yeah, fuck.”

He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “I thought…”

“I know what you thought, B,” you told him softly. “And I’m sorry if that’s how it appeared but c’mon, Indiana isn’t _that_ redneck. Plus, I love you, and I would never, ever do that to you, okay? You don’t have to worry about that with me because why would I want anyone else when I have this amazing, sweet, badass man all to myself?”

Each compliment was paired with a kiss to a different part of his face. You scrambled across the console to plant yourself in his lap and hug him into your chest.

His strong arms wound around you and he buried his face into your neck.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, nearly inaudibly.

“For?”

“For acting like a complete gorilla, and for jumping to conclusions.”

“And?”

“And for ignoring you.”

“And?”

“For staring down Kathy Worthington’s shirt.”

“Apology accepted.” You pulled back to take his face in your hands. Then your eyes narrowed. “Ten bucks says those things of hers are fake as hell.”

“You’d win that bet,” Billy laughed, prompting you to join in. Silence befell you, and he looked up at you longingly. “I do love you, you know.”

“I know. But if you ever ignore me like that again, William Hargrove, you’ll be celibate for a month.”


End file.
